BLOOD TRANSFUSION VERSUS EATING OF BLOOD (A COMPARATIVE CRITIQUE ON DEUTERONOMY 12: 16 AND ACTS 15:20)

The development of Blood transfusion (giving of blood to save life) as part of curative processes ranges between 1628 A.D. and 1818 A.D. Patients who lose large quantity of blood more than the marrow could replenish in quick succession are resuscitated by blood transfusion. Situations that may warrant this could be excess bleeding in an accident, protracted ailment or such sickness that attack and dry up blood cells. Physicians do not just recommend blood therapy except in an extreme condition where a patient is running the risk of death due to acute shortage of blood. One may ask, “If there is no controversy about the efficacy of blood transfusion, why embark on this religious appeal to a well-established medical practice?” The answer is, some religious bodies reject this on faith grounds referring to the injunction that no one is to eat blood because it is life (Leviticus 17:10-14 and Deut.12:16). In this study one dispassionately examined the issue of blood transfusion theologically from related literature, journals, and oral interviews. Findings of this paper shows that the Watchtower Bible Society, God's Kingdom Advocate, First Century Tabernacle have their strong resentments over blood transfusion according to their faith consequent upon the bible passage above which has been defectively interpreted. This antipathy is assuming none theological height from social angle in the face of AIDS pandemic scourge. One had the task of repositioning the religious psyche of the abstainers and their sympathizers and to distinguish between the eating of blood and transfusion.